City income tax revenues have grown year-to-date

The Dublin City Council Finance Committee got an update last week on the city's coffers and found them full.

According to Angel Mumma, Dublin director of finance, income tax revenue is up compared with the first half of last year.

"Overall, the state of the city continues to be healthy," she said, adding that income tax collections from the top 500 businesses in the city are up by nearly 12 percent over last year. "That's positive and speaks to the strength of our tax withholdings."

The first quarter of fiscal 2014 saw income tax revenue come in at 13.8 percent over the same period last year, and in the second quarter the trend continued with an increase of 9.9 percent on a year-over-year basis.

Nationwide Insurance's decision to move from Dublin to Grandview Heights will impact income tax revenue, but not monumentally, Mumma said.

"Without Nationwide, we're still up," she said.

"If Nationwide had no presence in Dublin in 2014, the second-quarter income tax revenues would have still reflected a 5.5 percent increase over 2013, which speaks to the overall strength of the city's tax base," Mumma's Aug. 11 report to council stated.

"Additionally, Nationwide has an active economic development agreement, which provides the company an incentive payment up to 42 percent of the different between their actual withholdings and target withholdings through tax year 2016. For tax year 2013, the incentive paid in 2014 was in excess of $850,000, further reducing the net income tax revenue received from the company."

Income tax revenue makes up the lion's share of city revenue and with it on the upswing, the general fund balance is also increasing.

Dublin has a practice of keeping at least 50 percent of general fund expenditures in its year-end balance. The rainy day fund is now at $58.7 million, the equivalent of 95 percent of general fund expenditures, Mumma said.

"Overall, the city's very healthy despite some of the announcements," she said.

In other finance committee news, the group recommended council grant $12,000 to the Dublin Arts Council for an Eddie Adams photography exhibit, and council unanimously approved the recommendation.

From May 25 to Sept. 11, 2015, the Dublin Arts Council plans to exhibit 50 photographs taken of the Vietnam War by Adams.

"Normally it's six to eight weeks," said David Guion, Dublin Arts Council executive director. "We would have it for 16 weeks for additional workshops and to work with the community in general."

The exhibition will cost $56,400 to bring to Dublin and will include a visit from Adams' widow, Alyssa, and colleague Hal Buell.